I can't remember

[Dom R]

We have had joint therapy. ...
she utterly refused to address sex as an issue except in a general way.
[and then she later had an affair]

Oookay... sounds like you basically had a useless, incompetant therapist, then. I'm sorry
There are actually useful ones out there, though.

DS 15 wanted to discuss his plan to get a job and DD 3 came downstairs to cuddle with Daddy after a bad dream. H commented "Well, there it was, your 5 minutes of Mom/Dad time."
[...]

The problem is that he doesn't look for these solutions,

Maybe he thinks that, as the mother, it's "your job" to choose how to deal with this stuff.

There are a few different possibilities that I see as potentially at work here.
I think it depends on how he made that comment. I also think that you might not be in the best objective frame of mind to judge which one it was, so be careful when reading the following.

He might have meant it as "There, i've done my duty for today"
Or he might have meant it as "I'd like to do more but our children get in the way as usual".
The thing that makes it ambiguous, is that he didnt say, "there goes OUR mom/dad time". he said "your".



The two possible interpretations i can think of, might come from some of the following possible internal states for him:

[for the "done my duty" bit: ]He's detaching from your marriage, because he feels powerless to have a real marriage with you, in the face of the demands of your children. Kinda like a "walk away husband" mentality. ie: "Home is a mess, and I cant do anything about it, so I'm going to choose to throw myself into my work instead. that's something I CAN do good at".

Or, for the more benign positive interpretation:
He still WANTS more connection with you, but has given up trying, because he's (feeling) powerless.

That extra history info, about him ALWAYS being passive in sex, is... umm.. disturbing, though.
From that, I would jump to the conclusion that you have about a snowballs chance in Hxxx of him EVER initiating sex, and you were crazy to go on your protest "strike" in the first place

Sounds like you have a pathelogically timid, submissive man on your hands... and you married him, so you have to deal with him and adjust to it :-/

My guess is that:

- You will probably have to be the one responsible for making sure the children do not dominate your lives all the time. Your comments griping about him not taking any action, are unhappiness from an unmet expectation that HE is the one supposed to be taking action, on something that is making YOU unhappy. Sounds like a bad expectation to keep for yourself.


- You are probably going to have to initiate sex, 99% of the time, for the rest of your married life. The sooner you accept that, the happier you will be in your marriage.

- You will most likely have to go to confrontational measures, to get him to re-engage in your marriage.

I think that the "DB" approach, would be to, before going to extreme confrontational methods, start by doing something radically different. Such as , without asking for his approval, arrange for your children to be babysat, at least twice a week, for a few hours when you know that he would normally not be working.
Then start doing some 'together stuff' during that time.

At some point, those "twice a week, no kids" times, could be used for sex. but he'll probably be most comfortable if it is just officially kept as "together time", not specifically "sex time".


Oh.
But you should definately also confront him at some point (in a non-inflammatory, non-accusing, but definately a "no bull" sort of way) about masturbating.
You need to KNOW about it, not just guess, becuase I think the truth about it, radically changes what needs to be done to improve your marriage. He may actually not be.

(where would he do it anyway? at the office?? If he did it at home, I would think you would 'know', not just be guessing about it.


So... what do you think of all that?